My World is Spinning

Yesterday I had some pretty bad dizzy spells, some of them getting so bad it literally felt like the world was spinning. The dizziness began causing nausea, and after an international fare lunch with the College of Humanities following a conference, I had an international fare stomach ache. I left work early and came home for a three hour nap.

Looking back, I've been dealing with dizziness for a few days. Recently at work I've been getting small headaches and short dizzy spells. I'm not prone to headaches, but these I could shake off by closing my eyes and relaxing for a few seconds. Yesterday it got a lot worse.

This morning I have still been dizzy, although it hasn't been bad enough to cause nausea yet (thank goodness!). Nevertheless, I made an appointment and visited the doctor. Turns out that there is some weird stuff going on in my inner ears. She wasn't sure if it was labyrinthitis, leftovers from a viral infection, or a combination of the two. Either way, I got some meds and strict orders to stay hydrated and well fed.

Every story has a bright side. I'm feeling a little bit of what Stephanie has been feeling for almost 3 months now. This has helped me appreciate her efforts and her attitude despite how sick she has felt.

We're looking forward to camping this weekend, and hopefully we will both be somewhat recovered by then!

Summer 2008 Unveiled

We are finally settled in again here in Provo. Our recent neglect of the blog is due to several things, but needless to say we are happy to be home again. That being said, we had a wonderful summer and wanted to fill everyone in on some of our highlights.



This video contains pictures from many of our summer activities. We arrived in Athens, Georgia near the end of May. Most of our time there was spent studying, but we had the opportunity to go on a few trips. Then, at the completion of the internship, we began a road trip home that took us through South and North Carlolina, Cincinatti, Kansas City, and Colorado Springs. We saw some sites and visited family and friends along the way, and it was a blast.

With school and Stephanie's second trimester approaching, we are nevertheless "funned out" and happy to be back in our own home.

We love you all and hope you are doing well!

The Beginning of the End of our Summer

It feels like just a few days ago that we arrived to Athens, Georgia for my summer internship at UGA. Now we're done, and we're at the beginning of our journey home which will involve seeing new sites and visiting family. I often spend a lot of my time planning the future, but it's days like these that remind me I need to spend more time living in the present.

My internship was a great opportunity, and I learned so much. It was a lot of hard work, but I was able to accomplish some good work. In academics, your skills or your personality don't really matter unless someone with an important opinion takes notice and can verify those things. I was very lucky this summer to interact with people whose opinions matter. Not only will they be some of the people who write letters of recommendation for my future graduate school applications, they may also be the people to whom I send those applications!

We are also very lucky that Stephanie was able to be with me all through this summer. It would have been very difficult had she not been able to come. Stephanie was able to take classes through independent study, and the amount of progress she made will help her finish school despite being busy with the arrival of our first child next year. I have appreciated her hard work this summer, and the love and support she constantly provides.

Stephanie has had some tough days this week, and we've really started to see how bad morning sickness can get. Some days she wasn't able to keep anything down, and some days she has to lay down to avoid vomiting. We are really glad for the times when she is able to move about and be on her feet. This is definitely going to have implications for our summer vacation, but we're going to have a good time regardless of what we do!

We hope everyone is doing well. We love to hear from you. Take care!!!

Update

Let's see... we are:

• one week closer to coming home
• one week closer to Stephanie being done with morning sickness (by the way, any more suggestions or remedies?)
  
• one week closer to the BEACH!!!
• one week closer to our most excellent cross-country road trip
  
• one week closer to leaving dorm life!!!
• one week closer to having our first baby
• one week closer to our own bed!
• one week closer to our own kitchen (with a full-sized FRIDGE!)
• one week closer to seeing Stephanie's family in Colorado
• one week closer to seeing Daniel's family in Utah
• one week closer to our next blog post...keep in touch!

We love you!

Road Trip!!!

Ok, so we've still got two weeks left here in Athens...and we're having a good time. But we're really excited for our road trip home. We made campsite reservations a few weeks ago for Edisto beach, and yesterday we made hotel reservations for Charleston, SC and Durham, NC. Duke University in Durham is one of the schools I am interested in attending for graduate school, and so I have arranged to meet with a few professors there while we are still on this side of the country. Hopefully those contacts will prove helpful when it comes time to submit my application! Either way, Stephanie are both excited about our road trip home.

Oh, by the way, don't let Stephanie fool you. She may feel like the Wicked Witch, but she's been doing very well despite her morning sickness (or "all-day-except-1-to-3-pm" sickness). She's had trouble keeping food down at times, but she's remained cheerful and positive for the most part. I sure chose a wonderful wife to marry!

We love hearing from everyone. We hope you all have a wonderful week!